Virtual computing environments, sometimes referred to as hosted environments, hosted desktops or servers, cloud computing environments, virtual processing environments, virtual storage environments, deployable resources, or by similar terms, allow remote execution and processing of computationally intensive tasks. These environments may be dynamically deployed (e.g. instantiating virtual machines or servers, beginning execution of the hosted environment, etc.) or undeployed (e.g. stopping or terminating execution of the hosted environment, etc.).
During deployment or execution, such environments may require significant power, bandwidth, memory, and processor resources. As a result, the cost of running cloud environments for users and developers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week may frequently be cost-prohibitive, particularly in large operations with many users. While users frequently do not need constant availability of cloud environments (e.g. weekends, holidays, vacations, nighttime, or any other such time when the environment is not in use), deploying and undeploying the environment may take significant time, and users do not want to wait for the environment to be instantiated each time they need access. Users also must remember to un deploy or tear down their cloud environments when not in use. As a result, most users simply leave the virtual environment executing all the time, wasting power, bandwidth, memory, and processor resources, as well as increasing costs for the organization.